A mesh network may be combined with multiple types of broadband wireless access technologies. Moreover, after the mesh network is combined with a broadband wireless access technology, a coverage area of a wireless system can be greatly increased, and a bandwidth capacity and communication reliability of the wireless system can also be improved. Therefore, the mesh network has become a key subject for research in the communications field and academic circle. In addition, with continuous development of mobile communications technologies, Long Term Evolution (LTE) has become a mainstream wireless communications technology currently. A device-to-device (D2D) technology in LTE is considered as an important feature, and standardization work is performed on the D2D technology. The D2D technology is an end-to-end direct communication technology. A greatest difference between the D2D technology and a conventional cellular communications technology lies in that, based on the D2D technology, mobile terminals (for example, user equipments (UEs)) can directly communicate with each other, and forwarding by a base station is not needed any longer. Moreover, with continuous development of society, a quantity of mobile terminals in a mobile communications network is also increasing rapidly. This undoubtedly increases network load of the mobile communications network greatly. In this case, due to a unique advantage of the D2D technology, the D2D technology becomes a preferred technology for reducing load of the mobile communications network.
It is widely known that, in an existing Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) mesh network, the WiFi mesh network is mainly used for backbone backhaul, and there is no power consumption problem. However, in a D2D mesh network formed by combining a mesh network and a D2D technology, power consumption of a mobile terminal is a key factor affecting user experience. Therefore, in the D2D mesh network, how to save electricity of a mobile terminal has become a problem that urgently needs to be resolved in the art.